AFTER THE GENERAL ELECTIONS The General Elections held on 22 May gave the following results:
Parties Votes % seats Liberal Democratic Party 22,976,830 57.8 287 Socialist Party. 13,093,984 32.9 166 Communist Party. 1,012,036 2.6 1 Independents 2,380,796 6.0 12 Others : 287,990 0.7 1 Totals 39,751,636 100.0 467 Compared to the previous election of February 1955, the SP increased its votes by 1.9 million and its seats by LP lost 400,000 votes and 10 seats; but since 10 independents are expected to join with the LDP in parliamentary voting, it has in practice maintained its position. The CP lost one
Its votes increased 280,000; but, since it presented 114 candidates as compared to only 60 in 1955, its comparative strength shows a decrease. Press reports indicate that within the SP the relationship of forces has shifted in favor of the left wing. leading. The 99 left-wing members actually include many centre elements; the left-wing bloc is composed of five warring factions; the largest faction, headed by the SP leader Suzuki, is in sharp conflict with the other factions ; and Suzuki himself has been captured by the right-centre group headed by Kawakami and Asanuma. Is was widely expected that the SP would win over 200 seats; a prediction confidently made by the SP leaders. In order to win petty-bourgeois support, the leadership had a rightist electoral policy. But here as elsewhere this manœuvre did not suceed. In city areas SP growth has been stopped ; and in some cities the LDP could even increase its seats at SP expense. In rural areas, the SP continues slow growth, exemplifying the uneven rhythm of urban and rural developOn the basis of election results, the SP right wing and the bourgeois press opened a big campaign insisting that the SP must be a party, not of the working class, but of the nation as a whole, otherwise it will never win a parliamentary majority. The SOHYO union federation is counter-attacking, insisting that the SP must become more of a class party.
the elections the Kishi government stepped up the offensive against the workers, especialy the SOHYO. The unions suffering the most from this offensive have been those of the teachers (Nikkyoso) and of the postal workers (Zentei). Many union leaders have been fired and arrested for striking for their demands: The SOHYO majority leadership cannot mobilize the workers for large-scale defensive battles, so that the teachers' workers' unions isolated, and in the teachers' union even a large-scale split There is still, however, considerable fighting capacity among the rank-and-file militants, and a left-centrist growing in SOHYO. Though it includes militant members, this current will not be absorbed by the CP: If this tendency succeeds in winning the leadership of SOHYO, there will again be a great possibility for a militant left wing in the Socialist Party. The urgent necessity of an organized defensive is so great that the treacherous role of the SP and CP leaderships is growing quite obvious to workers capable of serious thought. Many of them are
beginning to demand a real revolutionary programme for In the students' movement the conflict between Communist students and the CP leadership has burst into the open. A June Ist Communist students' meeting by an overwhelming majority demanded the removal of all members of the CP Central Committee. Akahata, the CP central organ, openly announced this event in its June 5th issue, accusing Communist students of being anti-party provocateurs. in its issues of June 10th, 11th, and 12th, Akahata published long articles on Trotskyist activity and influence in the student movement. They accused the CP cells in Tokyo University and the Socialist Students' League of being under Trotskyist influence, and warned all party members to be alert and to start a severe struggle against Trotskyism. is the first open attack on a Trotskyist movement in the Japanese CP since the party was founded in 1922. This attack is aimed less at the students themselves than at the spread of Trotskyist munist students to Communist workers. At the warnings may succeed in slowing down Trotskyist fluence, for the workers have as yet little chance to hear the revolutionary message of Trotskyism. But more and more party members and militant workers are learning about the activity and programme of Trotskyism; growing doubts about their own leadership, some
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL becoming interested by Trotskyist Proletarian Revolution instead of "Peaceful Coexistence."
First Congress of the Socialist Students' League-an organization grouping all militant, students, and acting as the motive force of the Zengakuren (the 300,000-member Students' Federation) — took a decided position in favor of World Proletarian Revolution, and showed a trend toward the Trotskyist programme. The XIth Congress of the Zengakuren itself, however, while pulling away from the Stalinist conception, stopped half-way at a centrist position, that to obtain "peace" world imperialism must be strongly attacked, but failing to say openly that without the downfall of imperialism there is no guarantee of "peace" at all. There sharp conflicts between the left-centre majority (90 to 95% of the delegates) and the right-wing minority supported by the CP Central Committee, methods of a peace campaign. The right wing wanted to limit action to appealing to the imperialists to conclude a broad compromise with the USSR and China; the majority decisively rejected this concept. But the defensive attitude of the majority under right-wing attack prevented the real Marxist elements in the Congres from as yet developing differentiation and clarity among the majority, composed as of a small revolutionary left and a mass of centrist Much work remains to be
Lebanon: